


Alone Again, Naturally

by thequidditchpitch_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Comedy, Erotica, Masturbation, Second War with Voldemort, The Quidditch Pitch: Self Pleasure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-08
Updated: 2009-07-08
Packaged: 2018-10-27 16:31:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10812726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequidditchpitch_archivist/pseuds/thequidditchpitch_archivist
Summary: How Remus spent the evening he got sacked.  Er, quit..  Whatever.  Post transformation, post POA.





	Alone Again, Naturally

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).
> 
>  **Author's notes:** Written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/daily_deviant/profile)[](http://community.livejournal.com/daily_deviant/)**daily_deviant**  's May 2009 prompt of 'masturbation.' This is one of those things that turned out absolutely nothing like I planned, but I'm rather fond of it. Thanks to the DD mods and authors for keeping me inspired, motivated and for kicking my butt by giving me a deadline

Remus Lupin set down his trunk and sighed, taking a look around his familiar cottage. Apart from an understandable layer of dust, not much had changed. Not that he had expected it to, but given the tumultuous turns his life had taken in the past year, (or more specifically, the last week) coming back to the exact same place he'd started seemed almost anticlimactic.

_Oh well,_ he thought, _no matter._ At the very least, it was comforting to know that the familiar rooms would always be the same, if slightly more faded and shabby than the previous autumn.

He opened the shutters, looking out into the rapidly darkening sky. Still a bit too early for candles, though in his rooms at Hogwarts at this time of day, the sun would be hitting the oversized windows at just the right angle to fill the room with light of the most beautiful sort, golden hued with a tinge of pink.

He'd be grading papers right now, mentally preparing for exams, making notes in his journal--this student might be nudged into a better OWL score with a bit of positive reinforcement, letting her know you were looking forward to seeing her in your NEWT levels next year (teenage crushes could be used to encourage progress, as long as one was careful). _This_ one might do better with a sterner hand; he'd been so used to being handed everything--looks, money, popularity--that he tended to waste his potential. _Not completely unlike Sirius,_ Remus mused, though that was probably a bad place for his mind to go on this day of all days.

 

One of the few advantages the little house could boast of was a good cross breeze, so it was airing out nicely even if it was growing rapidly dimmer at the same time. However, the dark tended to ease his eyes, which always felt as if they'd been poked repeatedly by the pointy end of an umbrella after a transformation. Gloom he could handle. Wasting expensive candles was a different thing altogether.

He tied back the faded tartan curtains resolutely and made his way around the sitting room, wand aloft, banishing the grime that he could see and putting away the things that had been left out to gather dust in his rush to leave. When he approached the two tiny bookshelves in the far corner, he ran his fingers along the spines of the books affectionately. They were faded and well worn, certainly, and nothing to the towering stacks of the Hogwarts libraries, but every book on those shelves was an old friend, and bound to be a comfort during the months of uncertainty that would surely follow.  
 _  
And speaking of comfort..._

After hanging his robes and scarf on the hooks near the door, Remus shuffled off to the cramped kitchen, where he set a pot to boiling. The tea had been old to begin with, and had now accumulated nearly a year's time to deteriorate further. Nevertheless, it would be be hot and wet and relatively fragrant and it just might do something to ease the ache in his throat that was a result of a night of howling (if not the aches in his bones). The ache of regret--well, that was something he was used to living with.

The cupboards were nearly bare, but someone (he suspected Minerva) had kindly left a tin of chocolate biscuits on his desk that morning (a parting gift? consolation prize? sexual overture?) so it occurred to him that he could have an almost proper tea.

Before long, he was seated in his most comfortable chair, stocking feet crossed in front of him, sipping weak and bitter tea and savoring the final crumbs of the solitary biscuit he'd allowed himself. Dinner would have to be stale pot noodles until he could get to the market, and the following day he was going to have to try to get the vegetable patch sorted out, but for now he was content.

~*~

Some time later, once the clothes in his trunk were hung up or neatly folded in drawers and his bed had been stripped and remade, he slipped out of his robes and stepped into the shower. He had to be grateful that his grandfather had got _that_ right, at least, when building the house. The well water would never run dry, the pipes were good, and there was plenty of pressure. So what if it wasn't the faculty bath, which put the prefect's bathroom to shame with its sheer decadence. So what if the tile was mustard yellow and the tub had a big, rusty crack down the center? The heat and pressure on his aching neck was glorious, and he could feel the rest of his body begin to unkink from the top down.

He scrubbed hard at his skin, knowing that he'd never quite get rid of the layers of self-loathing that aseemed to cover it, (filthy animal, indeed) but he _could_ get rid of the stench of travel and illness. Stepping out of the shower, he caught his blurred reflection in the mirror above the sink. His skin was pink from the heat and the bath brush, and at the very least, he could take comfort in the fact that he need never worry about sliding into plump middle age. His face looked haggard, but his body was trim (if not wiry) and in the fog of the glass you could hardly see the lingering bruises and the intricately pattered scar tissue that covered his skin. Not that anyone was going to to be looking all that closely in the foreseeable future, mind you. Nor, in fact, had he ever been the sort to inspire much avid perusal.

Reminding himself that it wasn't time to settle into a proper mope quite yet, he pulled on flannel pyjamas so timeworn they felt nearly as soft as silk. Sort of. Not that he'd _felt_ much silk, come to think of it. School ties, of course, though even then, his had been handed down from his father. Thank goodness he'd made Gryffindor. And there _was_ the time he'd been tied up with some of those very ties, and he'd had a silk scarf wrapped around his eyes. That had been lovely, actually. But very, very long ago, and probably not the best thing to be thinking about when he was about to settle into a comfortable chair with a nice book and the last bit of the sunlight.

_Which_ book, though, that was the question? Not poetry, not in this state of mind. Dickens seemed too heavy, which completely left out the Russians, too. Seemingly of their own accord, his fingers wandered to an extremely worn copy of Poe's short stories. With a happy sigh, he let his spine relax and before long, he'd completely lost himself.

He must have fallen asleep in his chair, because shortly after that, his mind was abuzz with ghosts and terrified teenagers and Dementors and the incongruous sight of Severus shielding James son with his own body. Not completely unexpected, given the story he'd been reading and the way it made him contemplate death. But it didn't explain Harry merging into James, and then Lily at sixteen, fresh and lovely, her eyes alight with mischief, looking at James and pretending not to look. And it didn't explain Sirius' presence--not the walking corpse he'd come face to face with the night before--but the Sirius of his youth, brash and bold and almost heartbreakingly beautiful. And Peter--not the pathetic rodent but the _mate,_ the one you could count on, the one always saying nice things to you, the one who always laughed at your jokes, even the lame ones. Wickedly funny, eager to please, the one who'd snuck catnip into McGonagall's desk drawer and filmed her subsequent reaction, the one who somehow _always_ knew what was going on the other houses. All these familiar faces, so long buried in the bowels of his conscious mind, but in his dream they roamed freely, doing things that they never might have done in reality.

~*~

Or maybe it was that Remus was just the smallest bit perverted, because he awoke with his heart pounding and his pulse racing and a rather persistent erection that wouldn't be willed away with his usual stern lecture.

Sighing, he made his way back to the bathroom, debating the merits of a cold shower (which would surely cause his aching muscles to bunch up in protest) and a hot one, which meant giving into his baser urges and relieving a bit of tension. He looked dubiously at himself in the mirror, considering. _Pathetic, definitely. Sick, sad and twisted, certainly. But only human._ And considering the previous night, 'only human' wasn't such a bad thing. _Considerably better than the alternative.  
_  
When the bathroom was nicely fogged up and he could no longer see the disapproval in his own eyes, (and once his pyjamas were neatly folded on the toilet seat) he stepped around the ugly curtain and let the scalding water hit him square in the chest.

He closed his eyes, feeling just the smallest bit ridiculous, trying to get himself back into the state of mind he'd been in when he first woke up, before his logical side took over.

Well, there had definitely been a bit of Lily there, which seemed bit...sacrilegious, given the fact that she'd been dead for over a decade and he'd just spent the last eight months cautiously mentoring her son. And then there was the whole 'James' issue, which was probably (no, _definitely_ ) why he'd never acted on those impulses as a teenager. Still, the image was the clearest one in his head at the moment, so he gave in, just a bit.

Lily was spinning on the bank of the lake--she couldn't have been more than sixteen. It wasn't that Remus could actually _see_ the tops of her thighs as her skirt lifted in the wind, though that had been an added bonus. And it wasn't because the fabric of her shirt seemed molded to her breasts by that very same wind, though if he remembered correctly, that had sent him up to the dormitory with a crimson face and an embarrassing bulge in his trousers. It was her eyes--it always had been those glorious eyes of hers and the way that she never hid what she was feeling--not even a bit.

Thoughts of _that,_ however, inevitably led to slightly _less_ innocent thoughts, like the way she'd looked when he arrived early that morning (years later) for brunch, with her hair all tousled and her lips divinely swollen, looking apologetic as she announced that James had popped out for pastries and the Prophet. She might have well had a sign tattooed on her forehead-- _Yeah, I've spent the morning with a cock in my mouth (among other orifices). What of it?_

At this point, Remus' cock was stirring in his hand and his skin was getting that prickly feeling that had very little to do with the hot water.

However, 'Cock-in-a-mouth' was always a good jumping off point for _his_ brain, and he exhaled happily as he remembered how it had felt the first time--who was it...Jenny, Joanie, Gerrie, Judy? _Judy,_ that was it. Judy White, and it had been readily apparent that Miss Judy White had done that sort of thing a time or two before. Remus might not have remembered her _name_ straight off after so many years, but he'd _never_ forget the way she'd looked up at him from under her lashes, smiling around his cock as he completely lost the ability to form a coherent sentence for the first time in his life. He'd been reduced to false starts and random filthy words as she took him in deeper and deeper, rolling his bollocks between her fingers, moaning convincingly as he thrust into her mouth.

Definitely a prize winning performance in Remus' book, though he imagined it would be hard to find a blow job in his cache of memories that wasn't a good one. Ruta--the intern at that ridiculously tiny library in Pembroke--she hadn't been all that enthusiastic, but that was to be expected, given that she was only doing it to get back at her pillock of a boyfriend. Not one of his finer hours, admittedly, but Remus had been rather desperate at that point. Besides, she'd had a fantastic arse and a rather nice mouth, and the fact that they'd been surrounded by the perfume of dusty books and apt to be caught at any moment had done the trick in the end.

The last one he'd had hadn't been half bad either, even if the overpowering aroma of incense had nearly caused him to faint. She had invited him up for tea, but the accompanying plate of brownies had a familiar sickly sweet odor to them that brought Remus back to the seventies and all the free summer concerts James had dragged him to. 'Dragged' being the operative word. Remus had almost been tempted to partake of the questionable baked goods (if memory served, it usually made him feel rather tingly and open to new experiences) and quite frankly he'd still been a bit ambivalent abut dipping his nib into the Hogwarts Staff's...erm.. _inkwell_..but she'd been so very persistent, (and insistent) and it had been a way to get her focus off the crystal ball (and the fact that if she had any gift at all she was bound to take one look at him and see a Harvest Moon and a howling beast with her 'inner eye.') Anyway, he'd given in gracefully and it _had_ distracted her, and, once she got started and he managed to shut his mind off it occurred to him that there really was no legitimate reason on Earth worth turning down someone who wants (for what ever reason) to put your cock in her mouth.

And he _had_ returned the favor, hadn't he? Let it never be said that Sandra Lupin's son didn't mind his manners.

 

At any rate, that particular memory wasn't doing the trick--his poor cock was rapidly losing interest, and now that he was actually _there,_ in the most convenient place for doing that sort of thing, he supposed he may as well finish.

Rosmerta--well, she'd always been a go-to fantasy, and it was bound to be more hotter (or at least more realistic) now he'd seen a bit of the reality. Just a snog, really, and a few glorious minutes with his hands on those magnificent breasts, but it certainly was something that would have made Sirius jealous, if he knew. And if he ever got the opportunity, Remus thought he might just be petty and hold it over the wanker's head. No need to mention that an inopportune Floo call and his conscience (guilty for taking advantage of a woman who'd felt sorry enough for him to give him drinks and dinner on the house--and more than once) had put a premature end to things.

Of course, for all he knew, Sirius had already had her--at least he'd hinted about it often enough after school ended, though Remus had never really believed him. But why shouldn't it be true? Clearly, the woman had a warm heart and and and accommodating moral code. Not that there was anything wrong with that. And Sirius had always been way too charismatic for his own good.

Hell...even _he..._

But then again, it was probably best not to go there.  
 _  
Especially now._

After having discovered that (contrary to popular opinion) Sirius had _never_ stopped being the reckless, maddening, immature, selfish, _(_ and most importantly) _inherently noble_ man he'd always been. Remus found himself shaken to the core. Knowing that, in the space of an instant, with one look, (and one embrace) all the walls he'd built up to fight off his love for the man came crumbling down, and that Sirius, as usual, barreled blindly past them, probably never stopping to consider they'd been built to keep him out.

And there Remus found himself--when the day before it seemed impossible--he was a lad of twenty-one again, working with his best mate, fighting alongside him--one purpose and two bodies breaking through twelve years of distrust and twenty years of complicated emotions. Only to have it taken away in an instant. It was going to be impossible to rebuild the barriers, but at the present moment (and for the forseeable future) he was unable to do anything at all about what he knew, what he felt.

Still, the memory of that look in Sirius' eyes still managed to send Remus into a tailspin of emotions he hadn't faced since that awful night twelve years before-- _Why, oh why, didn't I listen, didn't I trust? Why didn't I stand up for him, why didn't I reach out to him. And for that matter, why didn't I take a chance when I had a chance instead of ignoring it or blaming it on the booze._?

At this point, it occurred to Remus that thinking along those lines was only going to make things worse, and this certainly wasn't going to help with the quick, simple wank he'd planned on having.

 

Shaking off the sudden seriousness, he tried to start again.

_Well..._

The hidden bookshelf in his bedroom and all the fascinating fictional characters that populated his fantasies. Well, perhaps mixed in with a bit of the real and possible. The first time he'd sunk into a woman, that was there. She'd been dark haired, with soft thighs and small breasts and when she came she lapsed into a foreign tongue.

The first girl to tell him she loved him. He'd had to end it, of course. She wasn't even a witch; she'd never have understood things such as moon cycles and whether he was classified as beast or being that month and why it mattered so much. He'd heard that Muggles were under the erroneous impression that Werewolves were quite sexy, though he doubted the impression would have lasted if he'd let her in on the secret. Nothing at all sexy about a naked, vulnerable, puking, aching, can't-even-hold-his-head-up-to-take-a-desperately-needed-drink-sort of a bloke. At any rate, Remus hadn't given her the opportunity to prove the extent of her love. Yet another commitment phobic man for her to complain to her girlfriends about. And off he goes...  


  
Still, to this day, Remus carried with him the way it had felt when she welcomed him into her body, the way her legs had wrapped around him and the way she always tucked her head into his neck and moaned against his chest. The way it had felt to wake up with one hand on her breast and the other curved around her hipbone...  
  
That was beginning to work, and Remus braced his hand against the tile, stroking his cock as he remembered how it felt to sink gently into her while she was half asleep, the way she always pressed her bottom back against him and arched her back, still in the thrall of her dreams but moaning his name (not his _real_ name, of course, but it almost hadn't mattered to him). He wondered if she ever thought of him.  
  
Taking a quick break, Remus dragged his palm back and forth across the bar of soap, picking up lather along the way. This was _working,_ this he could _feel,_ almost, it had to be nearly over with.  
  
But then he lost the feeling--her face faded away, and he was seeing the sadness in his former employer's eyes as he accepted the resignation letter from his hand, the anger and reflected impotence in Lily's--no, _Harry's_ eyes as Remus tried to convince him that he had a perfectly good reason for taking it up the arse yet again, just letting the arseholes walk all over him, as Lily used to say, working herself up into a real rage. Remus would always let her, just for a bit, Just a bit of knowing that she cared enough to be angry for him, at least and then he'd stop her; _I've been through this before, you'll only make things worse, please Lily, let it go.._.   
  
And it was still gratifying, over a decade later, though at least back then he might have tried a bit harder, if only to attempt to prove that he was worthy of her, even if she was off limits. Or at least to give a good accounting of himself to Sirius, who would never have calmly sat back and let himself be sacked, let alone turned in his resignation before the fact.  
  
But then again, that was the Sirius of old--the one he saw last night had a bit less fight in him--he just _let_ himself be taken, even when he knew, _he knew damn well_ it was all a lie--he'd known all along, and that look he'd given Remus across the courtroom made a hell of a lot more sense now. And it was impossible to salve his conscience by asserting that he'd finally come to the proper conclusion on his own--it was only a decade too late, right? However, Sirius had seemed gratified by it, or possibly even more, in those few seconds of eye contact they'd had before Severus had barged in and bollixed everything up so completely. What would have happened, if Severus hadn't come, if Remus had not foolishly forgot to take his potion, if Fudge had believed them....  
  
Sort of pointless to think about, wasn't it? Still he could see it unfolding clearly--he might be well have been sitting in his cozy quarters behind the defense classroom, possibly sharing a bit of Irish Coffee and bridging the span of twelve years with his old friend, beginning to atone, maybe starting anew, maybe exploring what had always been there but he'd never had the nerve to acknowledge.  
  
But no--regrets were counter-productive, and Remus certainly wasn't going to torture himself with what might have been, let alone with fantasies that had never been acknowledged outside of dreams...but maybe that was what had been so _vivid_ in his daydream, or maybe it had been that oddly satisfying look of sheer terror on Severus' face as he recognized the 'beast' of his nightmares. Or maybe it was the knowledge of h how it had felt to roam the forest, sleek and powerful, generating fear rather than pity, knowing that he had it in him to rip, to tear, to kill, mindlessly, heartlessly.  
  
It was still there, beneath the surface, flowing through his veins even in this pain-wracked, broken, rapidly degenerating body. It was still clawing to get out, particularly this close to the moon, desperate burst free and bask in the fear it inspired, to shout to the world, to howl out years of frustration and repressed emotions to the sky, to shout to the world 'See me, _fear_ me, I have life and death in my hands. You can't contain me, you can't control me, I would break your neck with a snap of my jaw.  
  
 _Or a swipe of a claw,_ Remus thought, flexing his free hand and remembering how it felt. As his right hand moved faster and faster under the stream of hot water, he felt the pleasure and heightened emotion building up inside him, fueled by the remembrance of unimaginable power, of _freedom._ He straightened his spine and threw his head back, letting his shouts echo off the walls. For a glorious moment, he completely forgot who he was.  
  
Still trembling, he stuck his head under the spray, letting the water trickled down his body, soothing him, calming him. When the various images in his head began to dissipate, his vision cleared and he held out his palm under the water. Laughing wryly, (better that than crying like some silly teenage girl) he let the evidence of his foolish fancies disappear down the drain. _Well, there's another year of my life gone,_ he thought. Not much to show for it, but it's a far better life than they led him to expect he'd have all those years ago. There wasn't any point in point wasting time wishing for things to be different. And who knew--if Fudge ever managed to remove his head from his own backside--perhaps someday, he could have so much more...


End file.
